I just wanted an outside storage unit. That was all...just something to put my smoker and my outdoor propane fire pit in to keep them out of the elements. I didn't think that was too much to ask.
I found one! It is just big enough to keep my two backyard party items in! Unfortunately I have to order it online. Oh well, I can wait a couple of days. It isn't like it is raining here! This little unit will protect my valuables if it ever does rain!
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| Just the right size and price...but I have to get it shipped |
Okay, I put in my credit card number. 555-5066 2134 4898 4572 and the security code 911. I am a little suspicious because it isn't giving me shipping information like the method of shipping but it does tell me the price...50 bucks to ship it! That means they will have to stick 86 1/4 stamps on that, if they are shipping it by mail. At least I know that it is coming from only 50 miles away. It is shipping from a box store and the one I am ordering from is in Garden City. That amounts to only a dollar a mile...not bad with today's gas prices!
I click on order, and then the fun starts. According to the receipt, the order will show up sometime over the next 41 days. The wording (as interpreted by a Canadian sarcasm specialist) is:
Your order of a storage unit will be shipped by some yet to be discovered method and will arrive (possibly) any time between now and when the Sun turns into a lump of coal. Or maybe later. Definitely not earlier though. Please wait on your porch. Have an umbrella ready to hold over your smoker and fire pit. That will keep them dry.
I have been waiting for that storage unit for a week now. Wasn't shipping faster and cheaper back in the 70's? I could have ordered something from Sears and been enjoying it by now. Chief historian Steve Reynolds told me that when he was young, stuff could be shipped across the country in about 4 days. I had to tell him that I don't think a storage unit could be shipped by Pony Express.
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| Expert from my mystery store trying to figure out a way to deliver my product |
So I will just keep waiting. And watching. And hoping that it doesn't rain.
Dang it! Oh well, I will keep you updated. Gotta stand outside right now and protect my smoker!
By the sound of this you've been smoking something! I never told you that anything during my lifetime was shipped by Pony Express ever since I've lived just south of Rainy River several dozen miles; its all been by dogsled, just like you folks. The Pony Express was just a failed experiment. Nothing was overnight, 3-5 business days, or a week not including holidays sunless they started out weeks to a month before ETA, and all you'd know about it was one morning finding the huge (no matter what it was) heavily wrapped and banded package dumped somewhere near your door in a splay of dog tracks and sled runner marks in the snow.
ReplyDelete"Hey Ma, did you hear that? "Hike! Hike! Hike!"" I often said from beneath the heavy bison robes upon our bed.
"Yah Sven!, I tink dere's been a delivery of some proportion!" Monique would say excitedly. "Get out! Get out! Let's go see!"
Such was life in the Prairie Parkland area of Minnesoter back then.
$50 buys ten gallons of gas. Your car would only need to get ten miles to the gallon to make the round trip and you'd have your unit this afternoon.
ReplyDeleteThe real problem is that as Chinese factory workers get richer, they're buying up all the storage units for their own smokers before they can be shipped to Kansas anymore.